( xxxviii )
descriptions given us of their countrymen that invaded the Roman Empire. Thus far such an opinion is equally consistent, both with the Roman and Northern Historians.
On the other hand, that the Cimbri of Marius were not a Celtic, but a German or a Gothic people, is an opinion that may be supported with no slight arguments. On this head it may be observed, with our Author Mons. Mallet, “that the Ancients generally considered this people as a branch of the Germans[1],” and that their tall stature and general character rather corresponds with the description of the Germans than of the Celts: That as for the name of Cimbri or Cimber, it is resolvable into a word in the German Language, which signifies Warrior or Warlike[2]: And that the authorities of the Roman Historians cannot much be depended on, because (as has been before observed[3]) they were seldom exact in the names they gave to the Barbarous Nations. It may further be urged, that the facility with which the Cimbri made their way through Germany into
- ↑ See below, p. 21.
- ↑ Germanis quidem Camp exercitum aut locum ubi exercitus castra metatur,
significat; inde ipsis vir castrensis et militaris Kemffer et Kempher et
Kemper et Kimber et Kamper, pro varietate dialectorum vocatur;
vocabulum hoc nostro [sc. Anglico] Sermone nondum penitus exolevit;
Norfolciences enim plebeio et proletario sermone dicunt “He is a Kemper Old
Man,” i. e. Senex vegetus est, Sheringham, p. 57. See also,
Kemperye Man, in the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, Vol. I.
p. 70.
Sheringham afterwards adds, Illud autem hoc loco omittendum non est, Cimbros quoque à proceritate corporis hoc nomen habere potuisse – – – – – Kimber enim aliâ significatione hominem giganteâ corporis mole præditum designat. “Danico hodie idiomate, (inquit Pontanus, in additam. ad Hist. Dan. lib. 1.) Kimber sive Kempe et Kemper non bellatorem tantâm, sed proprie Gigantem notat.” Sheringh. p. 58. From hence it should seem, that a gigantic person was called Kimber, from his resemblance to the ancient Cimbri; rather than that this people were called Cimbri, from their gigantic size; so that this favours the opinion that the Cimbri were a different Race from the ancient Danes, &c. because no nation would think of calling themselves Giants; for if they were all uniformly gigantic, there would appear to themselves nothing remarkable in their size: whereas this would strike another people, as a primary and leading Distinction.
- ↑ See p. vi.
